Having woken us up at 12.30 and then woken me at 2 and 5am, this morning Olivia woke up properly at about 7 and showed very little sign of improvement. It is strange as she is still so happy in herself when she is awake, but the stream of nappies had not slowed and she still showed little interest in feeding. It is crazy as she can spend literally an hour sucking on the bottle and you would swear she was feeding but when you check the bottle she has actually only taken about half an ounce. It is like the bottles that came with baby dolls when I was little, where you tipped the bottle and the milk disappeared but then when you put it upright again all the milk came back.
Yesterday, not knowing how fit I was going to be, F_ has arranged with his boss to take today as holiday to help out with the childcare. At 8am I spent 10 minutes pressing the redial button on the phone trying to get hold of the doctors surgery to try and get an appointment for Olivia. We were told to come along at 10 and they would fit us in in between sessions.
The doctor was very kind and understanding. He looked Olivia over and reassured us that she was not showing signs of dehydration and had not suffered any real harm. He asked us if she had lost any weight. Luckily I had decided to weight Olivia that morning to check the situation myself and she had lost 4oz since Monday. He did agreed that we needed to nip the situation in the bud as by now she had been ill since Saturday.
These were difficult words to hear as her Mummy, but we were told to 'starve' her for 24 hours. We were to stop giving her milk and instead give her a powdered electrolyte solution, which should allow her digestive system to recover and reset itself. Babies can apparently manage quite well for days without being fed as long as they get the essential fluid and salts etc. He asked us what flavour she would prefer, Blackcurrent or Citrus... Now bearing in mind that she is 3 months old and has only ever tasted breastmilk, formula, Calpol and Infacol, I'm not sure that she had a strong opinion either way! We opted for Blackcurrent. We have to give her 1 to 1.5 times the volume of her normal feeds in the clear drink.
Although she screamed at first, probably because it was something new and she didn't know what was going on, she soon got used to the new drink. I'm not sure if she finds the new drink easier to take because of the thinner consistency meaning she doesn't have to suck hard to get it out of the bottle, or if her appetite had returned, but Olivia has been draining 7oz bottles of the electrolyte solution pretty quickly. She has had 28oz of the solution today on top of 7oz on milk we got down her before we went to the doctor. We have to continue this tomorrow morning and then hopefully she can return to milk.
Presumably due to the volume of fluid in her tummy, the drink satusfies her for a short while and then she cried for food. It is truly heartbraking to see her poor little face crying and wondering why mean old Mummy won't give bubba her milk. I just keep focusing on the fact that we are trying to help her and that her bottom will thank us for this in the long time. The doctor had warned us that we had to stick with it and not cave in and give her milk this evening and that it would be pretty hard going 'starving' her.
He wasn't wrong. It is starting to be a bit of a theme through these posts, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Yesterday, not knowing how fit I was going to be, F_ has arranged with his boss to take today as holiday to help out with the childcare. At 8am I spent 10 minutes pressing the redial button on the phone trying to get hold of the doctors surgery to try and get an appointment for Olivia. We were told to come along at 10 and they would fit us in in between sessions.
The doctor was very kind and understanding. He looked Olivia over and reassured us that she was not showing signs of dehydration and had not suffered any real harm. He asked us if she had lost any weight. Luckily I had decided to weight Olivia that morning to check the situation myself and she had lost 4oz since Monday. He did agreed that we needed to nip the situation in the bud as by now she had been ill since Saturday.
These were difficult words to hear as her Mummy, but we were told to 'starve' her for 24 hours. We were to stop giving her milk and instead give her a powdered electrolyte solution, which should allow her digestive system to recover and reset itself. Babies can apparently manage quite well for days without being fed as long as they get the essential fluid and salts etc. He asked us what flavour she would prefer, Blackcurrent or Citrus... Now bearing in mind that she is 3 months old and has only ever tasted breastmilk, formula, Calpol and Infacol, I'm not sure that she had a strong opinion either way! We opted for Blackcurrent. We have to give her 1 to 1.5 times the volume of her normal feeds in the clear drink.
Although she screamed at first, probably because it was something new and she didn't know what was going on, she soon got used to the new drink. I'm not sure if she finds the new drink easier to take because of the thinner consistency meaning she doesn't have to suck hard to get it out of the bottle, or if her appetite had returned, but Olivia has been draining 7oz bottles of the electrolyte solution pretty quickly. She has had 28oz of the solution today on top of 7oz on milk we got down her before we went to the doctor. We have to continue this tomorrow morning and then hopefully she can return to milk.
Presumably due to the volume of fluid in her tummy, the drink satusfies her for a short while and then she cried for food. It is truly heartbraking to see her poor little face crying and wondering why mean old Mummy won't give bubba her milk. I just keep focusing on the fact that we are trying to help her and that her bottom will thank us for this in the long time. The doctor had warned us that we had to stick with it and not cave in and give her milk this evening and that it would be pretty hard going 'starving' her.
He wasn't wrong. It is starting to be a bit of a theme through these posts, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.
No comments:
Post a Comment